M4a3 Sherman (HYSS)

Building the old Imperial Series M4a3 Sherman from Dragon.


Some of you may recognize this old timer from the mid 90's, especially the Shermaholics. The date on the instructions are from 1995 and I assume the sprues are that old. I bought two Shermans at the last show I attended (ValleyCon 20), each for ten dollars. With a price like that I could not resist and started planning on how I would build them.

First up is a pic of the box cover.





When I saw the box, and that this Sherman carried additional armor, the gears started turning and I had planned to build the model as the plates being recently welded on and not yet painted. But that wouldn't be too much fun so after finding a pic on line of a different Sherman, rusting away on a back lot of a Museum, I decided to paint this tank in a similar appearance. After all this is a web site for rusty things right. The other Sherman I got cheap will be built as a range target tank.

The painting of the model will involve some hairspray and maybe salt techniques. I will also go easy on the rust pigments and mainly try to use Acrylic paints instead.

After opening the box and looking at the sprues, it was apparent that Italeri made use of the old molds for there M4 Pacific Sherman. The kit does include some nice looking individual track  links, we'll see if these will be added to the model. The decal sheet is old and the white markings have yellowed so I may have to come up with replacements for them.

Since the HYSS suspension contains a lot of parts I tackled this first and after a few hours of cleaning parts, including all the road wheels, the suspension was glued onto the lower hull. I next started mating the upper and lower hull, along with the added bow plates.

Here is the progress so far and when the glue has cured I will continue with the build.






I also added some texture to the turret using Mr. Surfacer 1000. Next will be adding the small detail parts to finish the model off.


4/18/10

Work on this model has slowed due to me working on another model/dio at the same time.

I decided to remove some ( 6 ) road wheels to add some interest to the model and give it the appearance of being old. I made some hubs from sheet plastic and added the mounting bolts to the hubs.






Here is a pic of the model with the wheels test fitted to give an idea of how it'll look.




Besides the wheels, I decided also to not mount the side skirts and show the tank as if they had long been removed. I used stretched sprue and liquid cement to simulate the welds where the support brackets had been. A very simple addition that will that will add to the painting detail. No fancy PE or super detail scratch building is required  to make a good model. It's all in the painting.
Onto the small detail parts before the model is ready for paint.




4 / 27 / 10

The remainder of the parts were glued in place following the kit instructions, minus items such as the tools that were carried on board the tank. I added photo etch tie downs were the tools would have been located, just to add a bit of detail in this area.

The model received a couple of light primer coats using Poly scale paint, and checked for any flaws. As with all my models, the next step was to apply a coat  of rust color paint. I simply mixed different Tamiya colors in the brown range, including Hull Red. This was followed by brighter rust colors with some yellow and red mixed in. I like to mix my own colors so as to get the color I want, and can vary the color for certain areas of the model. I applied the rusty colors in a color modulation fashion, with darker rust for the cast parts of the tank, and brighter rust for the steel plates.









I started the painting / rusting with the turret first in order to have enough time for the paint removal. Another reason is that the turret is made of cast metal so the rust color will be different from the plates. And it's the cast parts that I want to remove a good portion of the paint, exposing the rusted, corroded metal.

The next pic shows some of the weathering/ rusting material I use on my rusty tanks.



I started by mixing two shades of rust colored oil paint washes, a dark rust and a brighter reddish color rust. Using paint alone works just fine for rusty tanks, but I like to add some dimension and texture to my models when rusting. This is especially important if the tank has been sitting out doors for a long time.

To these washes I added some pigments. The MIG Production Track Brown is for the cast sections of the turret, and the artist pigments are for the metal parts such as the hatches.





The washes have been applied to the turret, looks a bit messy but when dry looks much better.



here are the washes when dry, with the aid of a hair dryer.



I then added some dry pigments over the already dry wash. It's somewhat bright, but this will change when the actual paint is on.




So the next step is to apply a couple of light coats of hair spray. Before adding the hair spray I gave the turret  a spraying of MIG pigment fixer to seal in the pigments.The rust pigments have darkened with the HS.



I normally use Tamiya Acrylics, but this time I went with some Pactra acrylics that I have had for a few years. The Testers paint is used for mixing only, a couple of drops.




I first sprayed the Olive Drab green in light passes. Camouflage gray was used to lighten the OD green, and the other colors to darken the OD. This was sprayed on in the Color Modulation technique, as can be seen in the following pics.









The fun part of doing these types of models comes next, removing the paint. The pic below shows the tools of the trade, nothing too fancy, just some old stiff brushes. The Q tip is mainly for clean up when removing the paint. I use regular tap water for removing the paint/ hair spray, and for the tough spots I add some rubbing alcohol.


I started with the cast portion of the turret, removing enough paint till I was happy with the effect. The barrel was not painted with the rest of the turret, this will get a different rust treatment than the turret.









 The added armour plates were done next, exposing the brighter rust color, followed by the hatches.







Further weathering will come later when the rest of the tank gets it's paint.


05/01/10

With very little bench time available this week, I did manage to get the lower hull and glacis plate painted. I will be painting the upper hull in sections because I want to depict different types of metal, such as with the turret. The difference with the lower hull,mainly the added armour on the glacis plate, the front of the tank.

First the lower hull, which did not go as I had planned. I started the painting of the lower hull, added the hair spray and salt. I hoped to have time to remove the HS and salt, but had nno more time and left the model sitting a couple of days. This made removing the HS/salt difficult as it and the paint had fully cured. I had to use pure rubbing alcohol to remove some of the paint. This had removed the paint and also lightened the OD Green, which worked to my advantage. I then started weathering the hull with some washes to pick out the details.




After the normal application of HS I then adde some salt, this I kept to a minimum as I didn't want too much of the chipped effect on the lower hull.. The reason for this is that the sponson protects t most of the lower hull and running gear from direct  elements such as rain.

The next pic shows the base color, OD Green applied to the lower hull.



The next two pics are of the lower hull with the salt removed after a couple of days.A light filter has been appied to the running gear.




After a bit of weathering using dark washes and some rust, this is how it looked.





Further weathering of the lower hull will come later when the rest of the has been painted. I then moved onto one of the added on armour plates mounted to the glacis plate.  My thought was that such a large steel plate could not come from an enemy tank and only scavenged from some where else. Keeping this in mind I took to painting this plate a bit different..

I started with a heavy wash using my usual use of oil paints with a touch of MIG pigments



While the oil  wash was still wet , I then added a heavy layer of rust colored pigments. The reason for the heavy thick layer is to show metal that has aged and corroded, even  with multiple layers of paint.



This pigment coat is a bit thick but will result in a more realistic chipped/flaked paint effect, apposed to only paint that has no dimension. I then added the HS and a light sprinkle of salt. I also added some liquid masking fluid to some areas. It is important to use different techniques when doing old rusty tanks, and not relying on only paint and one technique alone.




I chose to give the original steel plate a grey color. This I did using a scouring pad that has been thinned  and the air brush. This technique I used before the sponge tech. still has it's uses.




As you can see the paint layers are not smooth and even due to the thick layer of pigments. I also kept the edges some what free of paint to show the rust and corrosion.
  Now to add a bit of color and variation I added some white letters, but ne complete word. This was made by cutting out some letters from paper and using this as a stencil.



Next came the OD Green by means of another technique, the sponge technique. Once again not wanting to cover a large and still let some corrosion show.





Now just to show what the result will be, removed some paint, salt and the liquid mask.






This technique works great when trying to show paint and metal that is very old. I used this technique on my T55 and was still able to chip/rust after nine months. I removed some paint less than an hour after painting, but waiting longer will result in much better chips/flakes.There are still some areas that need to be chipped/touched up.
Next will be the lower added plates.



5 / 04 /10

The two smaller armor plates were painted in about an hour with the aid of the hair dryer to speed up the drying time. The middle plate, the one that is bolted on was done with only the hair spray technique and went quick. I decided to add a German cross and the remains of red numbers. This was done to show that this plate was cut from a German vehicle, possibly a half track, by the thickness of the plate.

The HS method is the same that was used for the turret so I won't show the painting process on this plate.

Since I decided early on in the build of this model that I would try to use and show the different techniques for replicating rust and chipping, I used another technique that has been around for some time. Liquid masking fluid is a very simple and effective way to replicate large chipped areas, but not so good for the smaller worn and chipped paint effect. For the small chips the HS and salt techniques are better suited.

I started by masking off the areas to be chipped using a torn scouring pad and Liquid masking.



I then sprayed the Pactra OD Green that was lighten with some camo grey, basically the same color shade as the turret.



Next camo a technique that has been used for years, dry brushing. I use this dry brushing highlight the edges of the chipped paint, this has a similar effect as the mapping technique that is used by many model builders. The mapping can look realistic if done correctly, but when the mapping using the base color is far too light then the result is a not so realistic chip, IMHO.
The dry brushing using Liquid mask is a first for me as I normally use this method with the HS and salt techniques.



The following two pics show the removed Liquid Masking fluid, showing the under lying rust. The difference in the HS and masking techniques can be seen by looking at the two small plates.



This close up shows the difference in the three techniques used for the plates. The upper plate looks more corroded than the two lower plates. This is the effect I wanted to achieve on this particular model.



Like I said before, paint alone works great for replicating a rusty tank or piece of metal, but for older rusted/ corroded metal there has to be some texture to it to look realistic.
The plates will receive some further weathering later on when the rest of the model is painted. Next up will be the upper hull painting, again using different techniques.


Next came the roof of the upper hull, and this was pretty quick and easy to do. I used the hair spray technique for this and removed the paint in sections being sure  to remove most of the paint on the low areas and in the nooks and crannies. The following pics show the process  on the roof.












The next two pics show the model with most of the chipping done and the turret in place to get an idea of how the tank is going to look.







The sides and rear of the tank got the same treatment, with some added pigments on the lower parts for texture. Part II of this build will have the wheels and tracks added then the weathering of the model.